Posted
by
samzenpus
on Thursday June 18, 2009 @03:56AM
from the free-is-good dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Michael Geist summarizes
an important new study on file sharing from economists Felix
Oberholzer-Gee and Koleman Strumpf. The Harvard Business School working paper
finds that given the increase in artistic production along with the
greater public
access conclude that 'weaker copyright protection, it seems, has
benefited society.' The authors point out that file sharing may not
result in
reduced incentives to create if the willingness to pay for
'complements' such as concerts or author speaking tours increases."

You know, that's something I just simply don't understand: Why don't they bundle some crap with the CDs? Cheap trinkets that cost close to zero but make the fans happy?

You needn't go fancy. How about the "official, signed photograph"? Of course the signature is printed, but who cares? You can ONLY get it with THIS CD! (sure, others may exist, but THIS very special autograph picture is only available that way)

It's not like this would break the bank. But then again, they don't even include booklets anymore in CDs, why would I assume they could spend half a buck for a cheap crappy picture print?

Personally, I couldn't give a crap who the artist is, much less about having their signed photograph. To paraphrase a common saying, "It's the information, stupid." People want information, because they know information is power. Anything that gets in their way will be mown down. It's really that simple.

What can big media distribution companies do for money now that the internet has replaced their distribution model? Well, it's simple: they do the same thing spinning wheel operators did when the industrial revolution made it easy to get quality thread. They retrain, and get a new job --- one that's relevant and useful to the newer, more evolved society. They could become specialist, old-school, niche-market distributors for a select few, much like you can still go to a craft store and find hand-woven fabrics etc., but in that case, they'll need to be happy with their niche status, and their much reduced income. Not least, because people in hobbyist niche markets expect their suppliers to be decent people doing it for the love of tradition, rather than hate.

You probably don't care about picture autographs of a star, but I'm talking about the main target market, teenagers and their craze for overhyped one hit wonders. You only have to market it that way that it's uncool to copy the song instead of buying it, because you wouldn't have that superspecialawesome only-with-the-CD picture to show off how much of a fan you really are.

C'mon, they're masters of PR and marketing, at least they used to be. Fire some of those lawyers and hire some markedroids!

This is one way the game industry have attempted to over come piracy I think but to a slightly larger extent and I think we will see more and more of it.

Look at games like Guitar Hero, excellent, fun games that could quite easily be pirated but what is the point of having the game without the nice guitar to play it with. Same goes for rock band etc. More bespoke controllers and extras that make the game worth playing and consumers are quite happy to pay through the nose for it and not bother trying to pi

Whatever the reason... the games industry is MAKING MONEY. So is the DVD industry, the movie industry, the cellphone/ringtone industry, etc., etc..

The RIAA isn't making money because it's stuck in a rut with a 1990's business model. A big reason that people pirate music is because the RIAA isn't giving them what they want and the P2P networks are. What most people want is that song they heard on the radio in a format that works on their MP3 player (and no trip to the shops to get it). Apple is doing Ok with their iTunes store because they're doing this (though it's still a bit heavy handed with the DRM - I want files I can put on a USB stick and plug it into my car/HiFI).

The CD sales model? Not so much. The only people I know who still buy CDs are the ones who aren't handy with a PC. This is doomed business model. Period.

I don't care if the RIAA dies but I do care about all the laws they're buying that are rushed and later get misused (eg. DMCA).

Years ago we've done some work for a record label to promote an artist. When the job was over, we received a few "special" complimentary CDs - a lot better packaging, hand-signed, lots of extras. It was really nice and it succeeded in making us feel, well, special. It was probably a short-run that was given to press and so on as part of the promotion.

So they CAN do it. If, instead of a cheap plastic holder and some paper they'd add something of value, people would have an extra incentive to buy the CD as opposed to download the mp3 (legally or not).

Dsft Punk did this with Discovery - you got an access code to the (initially horribly DRM'd) Daft Club website where you could download remixes. Of course someone could de-DRM the remixes but share them but people with the code got new stuff earlier.

They could even look to the cereal industry for ways of doing these promotions. Cereal boxes all the time will offer something only to require that the person mail in a request form and pay some small shipping and handling fee. They could, as you said, include a code for a free 4x6 photo and then, when the photo is shipped to the person, toss in a mini-catalog with other band items the person can buy. Posters, hats, t-shirts, etc. Heck, it could just be a small card with the URL to the band's Zazzle.com

You know, that's something I just simply don't understand: Why don't they bundle some crap with the CDs? Cheap trinkets that cost close to zero but make the fans happy?

Don't you already get that? Most CDs come with a booklet with lyrics and photos of the artists, and they're often little works of art in themselves. It's one of the reasons why I prefer real CDs over downloads.

But then again, they don't even include booklets anymore in CDs,

They don't? Since when? I admit it's been a couple of month since I've bought a new CD, but usually it's only the really old albums that don't come with a booklet.

I read the first ten or so pages of the PDF before posting, and the intended audience was obviously not the media companies. I would guess that that audience would be law makers. The paper clearly states that social welfare for artists is not the intended consequence of copyrights, but that encouraging production is.

I found most of the arguments in the front section (which were probably more general and less supported than ones later in the paper) to be logical and well-reasoned, except for the part about authors generating income through speaking tours, which I doubt would be effective for any but the most famous.

Considering the current nature of media production, "touring" is about theonly way the smaller act is going to make ANY money. That's just the natureof the business and it is clear across many forms of media. You just have tobother to pay attention.

Most bands or authors don't really get any support from their label or publisherand are forced to market themselves. They don't end up making much of any moneyfrom physical media distribution or end up in debt to the label. This leads to"touring" of some form or

People aren't going to pay to go see a band they've never heard of either.

Unknown bands go to festivals to become more known, and people go to festivals to see the known bands and also take a look a other stuff while they're at it.It's the same for other kinds of artists, except conventions or the like replace festivals.

Their bottom line DOES benefit. Their problem is that their indie competetion, who don't have radio and empty-v, also benefit. The mainstream recording industry doesn't want to keep Metallica out of your ears, they want to keep indie music out of your ears.

Indeed, since the media "industry" - the guys that buy the lawyers and Senators - have no interest in "creating" anything. Their job is to exploit other peoples' creations. Whether the creators get rewarded or not is utterly irrelevant to them.

The recent Virgin/Universal deal [slashdot.org] that was covered here on slashdot is an example of things moving in the right direction. In case you don't remember: A UK ISP will offer something very close to Magnatune, for Virgin/Universal's music. You can make a monthly payment for an all-you-can-eat buffet. Yeah, there are still some minor issues (they still want to disconnect people without any trial, and they still won't let you give a friend a copy), but it's a huge

The media industry DOES believe it. In fact they have known it for a long time. This is easily demonstrable in that people listen to their radios and then turn around and go to concerts and other things. Radio play does not necessarily equate to CD sales unless the buyer is more or less a fan. On the radio the music is already effectively free. (Yes I know it is paid for by advertising and that the radio stations pay the music publishers for the right to play. But to the listener, it's free.)

The music publishers only have music to publish. That's what they sell. They don't do concerts. They might have the rights to sell t-shirts and other things as well, but their primary income is selling music. If the study says free music is better for society, they already know that. If the study says free music is better for artists, they already know that. The study effectively says that the music publishers are bad for society and are holding everyone back with their business model. Do you expect them to care? I don't.

These kind of studies are largely pointless. We already know this, and the media industry will not believe it regardless of how many studies come to this conclusion.

It is equally pointless to post a summary of this economic paper to slashdot. Everyone here "already knows" the answers.

Let me explain what it means when an economist says "society benefits". (By the way, I am one.) If a policy change causes Person A to lose $1 and Person B to gain $2, then "society benefits". If a policy change causes Persons A and B and C each to lose $1,000, but Person D gains $5,000, then "society benefits".

If you RTFpdf, you'll notice one argument they make: While file sharing may

Actually, no we don't know this, but, most importantly, it does not matter. This misses the point. The copyrights ought to exist, because the creators of things, that are hard to create but easy to replicate -- like software, literature, music, video, fashion design, what have you -- ought to enjoy to lesser control of their creations, than creators of things tangible.

Didn't you read the last post I made responding to you? Fashion design is not copyrightable, at least in the United States, and never has been, so why do you keep bringing it up, and perhaps pretending that it is? It's very odd. And it's certainly an unusual example to bring up in any case, since most people wouldn't think of it as a creative work, particularly around here.

Anyway, assuming you misspoke when you said that "creators... ought to enjoy lesser control," you're wrong. This has nothing to do with fairness. The world, it is well known, is not fair. And while it might be a good idea to make it more fair, surely we must prioritize our efforts such that we make things more fair for the most people before moving on to increased fairness for smaller groups, all the while not making things less fair for anyone, nor reducing the amount of increased fairness we've already brought about. Well, there are more readers of books than there are authors of books. So not only do the readers have more power in a democratic society, but making things fair for them surely must take precedence, if fairness is truly your goal, as opposed to, say, pandering to special interests while disguising yourself in noble-sounding lies about fairness.

The world seems to be made in such a way that things that are hard to create, but easy to copy are, well, easy to copy. If I come up with a good story which entertains and enlightens people who hear it, then surely it would be most fair to those who have not yet heard it if they could hear it from more than one person. After all, even if I went on the speaking tour from hell, and printed a lot of books, and distributed them all over, I'm sure to miss some people who cannot take the time to see me, cannot afford to buy a book, can't read, don't know the language I work in, etc. Letting others fill in the gaps that I, a mere one person cannot possibly fill myself, is a better method than letting them go unenlightened and unentertained. Copyright would prohibit this.

A lack of copyright, OTOH, certainly wouldn't prohibit me still going on tour and selling books, it would merely mean I'd face more competition. Since copyright didn't exist anywhere until the 18th century, and didn't exist most places until well into the 19th and 20th centuries, yet world literature got along okay, and has likely benefited more from things like improved printing technology, increased literacy, increased leisure time, improved methods of transporting books, etc. than it has from mere copyright, we can be pretty confident that the lack of copyright would not be a big deal.

Of course, it's not fairness, per se, that copyright is interested in. The goal of copyright is to promote the progress of science (i.e. knowledge) by encouraging the creation and publication of more original and derivative creative works, and having those works be as minimally copyrighted in both scope and duration as possible in the process, and fully in the public domain as rapidly as possible, since it is only then that the people of the world can take advantage of the easy-to-copy nature of the world that you have noticed, and help themselves the most. Since there are more of them than there are of authors, this is appropriate. Since it aids authors as well (e.g. Disney making films based upon public domain fairy tales), it's even more appropriate.

This derives not from it being economically beneficial (which it may or may not be), but from simple fairness. A book-writer ought to be no less protected from thieves, than a shoemaker...

An author and a cordwainer are pretty much protected the same. A tangib

I think what the GP was saying is that compared to 150k per song for downloading, a $500 fine for stealing the whole CD is rather trivial. Ie in the eyes of the law it's a lesser crime to steal music than to copy it.

A downloaded movie, CD or game is not equal to a product not sold, say the researchers. Also, "Amongst downloaders of music and film, the percentage of buyers is as high as with non-downloaders, in games, the percentage of buyers even higher. Music downloaders are also more likely to concerts and buy more merchandise. Downloaders buy more games than gamers who never downloaded and movies downloaders buy more DVDs than non-downloaders."

What if you're an artist but only want to create art and not tour all over the place just to make money? I realise that most musicians seem to like doing concerts, but what if that's not what you want to do and just want to record albums?

The same question would be: What if you are a painter and you paint only for a niche of the market? You make less money. But if you love the art, that's where your hart lies and that's what will make you happy.

Sure, you can go commercial and make more money, but that would probably negatively affect your happiness so you will have to choose and possible compromise.

I saw that mentioned on the website linked to in the summary. That is missing the forest for the trees. If the artists are getting screwed on digital downloads, then they have a right to demand compensation, but this is just one more aspect of the current RIAA business model that needs to be changed.

Sure, the shuffle in business models will give those in power a chance to screw artists a little harder, but we can't keep making buggy whips forever. We'll have to adapt eventually.

The problem is there are too many stupid artists, and I say this as an artist myself. Most seem to not take any time or trouble at all to even learn about basic copyright, never mind researching the various types of contracts available or that could be demanded from labels if they bothered to organize and put collective pressure on all the labels. More are beginning to adopt online distribution, however there are still plenty of pitfalls for the unwary & lazy.

Most are too self-centered around their art and ego. The big "Gold Ring" they drive for is to "get signed", and most of them are without any real clue as to what that can actually mean when you're talking about dealing with a record label.

Those kinds of artists get chewed up and spit out, ending up as burned-out cynical husks touring crappy venues in a crappy bus, living on less income than they'd make at a burger joint, trying to pay off what they "owe" to the record label after the third album, which the label didn't really promote much anyway, while still tied contractually to the label and unable to break free without paying the label tons more money on top of the mint they've already made the label.

Here's a piece I post a link to when this topic comes up. It's a bit cynical and also dated, but the situation he describes here is generally pretty accurate in how labels tend to treat bands/artists, which is generally as crappy as the band/artist lets them get away with.

Until artists make more effort to educate themselves about the business/legal end of the music biz and stop throwing themselves into the big-label roasting pit carrying their own bucket of BBQ sauce, not much will change. As long as the labels have lambs begging to be slaughtered and handing them the axe while shoving the previous lambs' remains off the block to make room, why would they want to change?

Great insight, thanks. Although I must clarify that when I was thinking of artists making some money for their studio albums I didn't think of any particular mode of distribution or anything, just pointing out that your studio work can (and should) still bring you money.

The same question would be: What if you are a painter and you paint only for a niche of the market? You make less money. But if you love the art, that's where your hart lies and that's what will make you happy.

Sure, you can go commercial and make more money, but that would probably negatively affect your happiness so you will have to choose and possible compromise.

Well said. I was going to say something along the lines of:

What if you're a food critic. You love traveling to exotic locations and sampling new food items for free, but you don't like having to write about it later. How do we, as a society, make your wishes profitable?

I swear to God, sometimes it's like people equate "loss of some monopoly privileges" with "absolutely forbidden to sell a disc ever again".

Yes, some people will download instead of buying the CD or paying for it on iTunes. Others will find the artist through file-sharing sites and buy something to either support the artist, own the physical CD or just to feel good inside. On the whole, these effects evens out pretty well, except for the minority of really big artists who lose a bit of income and the majority of really small artists who gain from being more exposed. This is, generally speaking, a good thing since the incomes in the copyright industry is very uneven compared to other industries.

No, it would mean that they would be unable to sell disks at that price again. These days, I listen to a lot more music on Internet Radio than I buy. Occasionally I hear a song, decide I quite like it, then see how much it costs and don't bother buying it. Next time I hear it, I may change my mind, but usually I don't. Now imagine that there was a button on the web site for 'buy this song' and 'buy the album this song is from' for 5Â and 50Â respectively with a guarantee that some fixed percen

Well I only want to play video games and roleplay with friends, but I can't make money this way...

By the way, just record music, distribute music and ask donation to make another album. If people are unwilling to pay you for that, well, maybe it is better for you to stop. Or not. Not very long ago, most musicians did not expect to earn any money at all. Those surviving thanks to their art only had music-hall pays. Records were a new thing, that changed the landscape completely and now it changes again. Now even a novice artist can reach millions of people if he manages to make ONE good tune. But he lost the ability to win millions of dollars once he established a trademark.

Well I only want to play video games and roleplay with friends, but I can't make money this way...

What the hell does it have to do with anything? I'm talking about artists getting a cut of the money on albums they sell. If the market will buy, it means you created value, value which you should get.

Not very long ago, most musicians did not expect to earn any money at all.

Bullshit. If you knew anything about classical music you'd know that all these guys whose compositions you heard were being paid for

What the hell does it have to do with anything? I'm talking about artists getting a cut of the money on albums they sell. If the market will buy, it means you created value, value which you should get.

But if the market won't buy, what does it mean ? That you didn't create value or that someone steals from you ?

Bullshit. If you knew anything about classical music...

I'm talking about the 1900' before the record industry went up. But yes if we go further back in time, we find composers (not musicians, musicians just had a regular salary when part of an orchestra or were itinerant artists if not) that are paid for commissioned work. A model that worked well enough to provide us with Mozart's and Bach's music. Why could this model not be used today ? Instead of some rich aristocrat, you would have donation from thousands or millions of people asking for new songs, et voila...

you would have donation from thousands or millions of people asking for new songs, et voila...

Yeah sure, imagine what would have happened to Axl Rose when people would have got tired of waiting for the Chinese Democracy they'd paid for a dozen years earlier. Or when artists would decide to retire. Or when artists would have announced to retire but came back. Either way that idea doesn't wo

Copyright in the U.S. was not created as a social welfare device, but as an incentive to create. The question this research paper raises is whether strong copyright actually creates that incentive or not.

You keep calling other people dense, but I think it's you that doesn't get the argument that's occurring.

Copyright in the U.S. was not created as a social welfare device, but as an incentive to create. The question this research paper raises is whether strong copyright actually creates that incentive or not.

You keep calling other people dense, but I think it's you that doesn't get the argument that's occurring.

At last a comment that makes a bit of sense. You're right about copyright, its use is questionable. The problem with other people's comment that I deemed 'dense' was that they said artists shouldn't get a dime for their studio work. The problem at hand is copyright, not the actual sale of albums. Even without copyright you can sell albums. In that sense, the comments in question are indeed quite retarded.

'Armchair Pirates' (lol) don't force anyone to give anything for free. They redistribute for free what they already have access to, if I was an artist I would say they would be doing me a favour by distributing my work for me. If you mean forcing people to give away for free by undermining copyright.. how is not asking for money worse than forcing people to give you money?

Basically you decide arbitrarily that studio recorded music should be free, and therefore as a sort of feedback loop that makes it inherently unworthy of any money. You can't just say "this should be free, make it free" for something that's not free and that the market validated as something you can ask money for.

Firstly, information is already free. The law might want to change the way reality works but you're not going to win an argument by sayin

No, I was talking about someone who only wanted to make studio albums.

Don't expect to be paid for the work you WANT to do if nobody is willing to pay you to do it.

But people have always been willing to pay for it.

Tell you what, if the artist creates by their personal hand EACH AND EVERY COPY, distributes it and ensures quality control on the recording and its copy, then this is when he did something to get the copy to us and he can ask to be

Insults? I thought you were just throwing wildly inaccurate statements into the mix, like calling me a troll for using a simile to show why I think your argument is poor. I find that ironic.

As you apparently couldn't understand my use of a simile I'll spell it out for you; The oil industry have a history of being far more evil bastards than anyone thinks the RIAA are. Using them as an example of why we should have the choice whether to pay people if they cannot set the price is, I would wager, counter-produ

Good question. If you wanted things to be "fair", then by doing the replication, the only things you're sparing GM are the entire manufacturing costs. So if you wanted to be "fair", you'd pay GM the price of the car minus its manufacturing costs, so that it would get the same money to pay for its designers and whatever else that is paid for when you buy a car, minus the manufacturing.

The manufacturing costs are the only things to spare, they already designed the car so those costs have already been met (even if they had to take out a loan to do it). What I think you mean is that they would be denied a return on their investment, the question is should someone who never signed a contract with GM be obliged to provide a return on their investment.

If you didn't pay anything to GM because you think it's all in the manufacturing, GM wouldn't have any incentive to make any car if they're only going to sell one, and neither would any other car manufacturer, so you'd successfully kill the auto industry, and be doomed to replicate cars that were made before the replication craze started, which means that even in 200 years people would drive 20th and 21st century cars.

Leaving aside how you attribute the death of the auto industry to peoples intent rather than natural progression, why would we need the auto ind

That's completely off topic. You're extrapolating on the situation of the analogy used to make a point that has little connection with the subject the analogy was used for. But sure, why not.

What was off topic?

So you have that car duplicator thing, and you don't want to pay the license I talked about to GM for duplicating their cars, am I right? So what's the incentive for GM to innovate anything if they're not gonna get any money for it? It pains me to even have to explain it (seriously, more people should read about Adam Smith, it's getting old always explaining why corporations do the things they do), but GM doesn't care about eco-friendly cars, or safer cars, it only cares about money. So where's the incentive if you don't pay GM something for their new cars? (Also, what's wrong with my license idea? Please address that).

The incentive is that their old business model doesn't work and they need a new one, they can always move to a different industry if they don't want to design cars. You still haven't explained why people won't pay them to design new cars if they want new car designs. If there is a market for it then people will pay for it, if there isn't then they won't. Not paying for something is only a problem if you made an exchange, if you copied their car design you have not made an exchange and the

Get a job like the rest of us? You can't just label yourself an artist and go around whining about loss of income if you don't want to go the extra mile. I'm terribly sorry for people's overly romantic view of stardom, but it just sucks, especially if you're not a star (yet).

By the way, pretty much any artist has a side job. In my experience, the more serious the job is, the less serious the artist is about being an artist and vice versa. There is only a very limited subset of artists that can make a living from their art.

Oh yeah? Tell Steve Jobs. Apparently people are willing to buy billions of songs for $1 each. You can't say that "people aren't buying" when people still buy only marginally less than they used to. That's just bullshit. Piracy of music just isn't that big. If it was then the entire recording industry would be bankrupt. That's obviously not the case.

What if you're an artist but only want to create art and not tour all over the place just to make money? I realise that most musicians seem to like doing concerts, but what if that's not what you want to do and just want to record albums?

What if you are a programmer but only want to work on things that actually interest you? I realize that most programmers enjoy sitting in cubicles all day long... Wait, there's something wrong here.

Being an artist doesn't exempt you from having to work for your money. And if your chosen line of work provides too little income, you will have to do something else to supplement it.

If you want to make money, you go where the money is. BTW, there are very few recording-only artists. Recordings are to get your music in front of people so they'll go see you live. If you can't make a living doing what you're doing, you need to be doing something else.

Well, I don't see the problem. So we've established that if they don't do concerts, they won't get the money they would have gotten if they had done concerts. OK, I'm not sure how that helps, although I can't disagree with that.

You obviously don't know any true artists. They produce whether anyone is buying their stuff or not. The ones that desire admiration do it in public. Most, however, would be just as happy trying to create the perfect piece and put it in a box which would only be discovered after the artist's death. Money has no meaning except to pay for the materials needed to produce the art, and food, shelter and drugs if there's enough money left after the art.

Mozart, Beethoven, Picasso all died more or less penniless, while the business-savvy people who owned their works made a fortune. It's true most artists create stuff for the sake of creating it. But good artists have very poor business sense, which means they will get taken advantage of by the business people. The situation has become so terrible that the creator of many copyrighted works has no right over his/her own work, and will not gain royalty, nor credit -- especially computer programmers.

Yes, but why did Mozart do all the things he did? Because he was commissioned for them, in other words paid. He died broke, but he still tried to make a living from his art. My point being, if no one had commissioned anything, then he wouldn't have done anywhere near as much as he did.

Well, I think the difference between making a living out of being an artist and being an artist for free is that when you're being paid you have more time and resources to devote to it, while if you have to make a living on the side then you're too busy flipping burgers to devote all your time to what you like to do.

His point is if no one is giving you money for making albums then there isn't a market for the albums. Forcing people to give you money for the privilege of using what they already have access to isn't an economic business model, it is money for menaces.

There are many ways to profit by creating art without involving yourself in the public performance. If you only want to create art (e.g. music) and not perform it, you can get other artists to perform instead of you on tours and get your share from the profits. Or you can sell your artwork to other performers. Of course, you should not expect your profits to be the same since part of the profits should go to the performers.

Oooooor.. you could sell albums! Seriously, why does anyone in this thread act like

Just don't cry to me when no one knows who you are and won't buy your music because of it.

That's (partly) what record companies are for, to promote and sell your albums. That's how it's worked just great for decades and keeps on working, and made billions of dollars alone in the process. I don't see what's wrong with that.

Nope, it is not a differing view on "society", but rather a differing view on "good".

For the society outside of the corporations, "good" is, generally, more creativity, i.e. less copyright. Less copyright means less monopoly, and less monopoly provides generally a better allocation of the resources of society. Of course, it'll make those lawyers, who want to succeed in the creative business work harder, but ain't that the American way anyway? Incidentally, this freedom may make people who invest in art more focused on the art itself as opposed to taking the easy way out -- owning copyrights and doing a failed remake after remake.

For the corporations, "good" is exactly the opposite. A corporation doesn't give a damn about what is good for society, as long as it benefits the corporate bottom line. Monopoly is the best way to insure a bottom line, especially in the view of the corporate owners (see, e.g. concepts like "economic moat"). So, a corporation will allocate resources not for new art, but for protection of lucrative copyrights, and for politics. Neither of which is good for art, or society.

If you take a look, you'll see that's exactly what's been happening in the decades since the ifpies and the wipos of the world came about.

Copyright was invented to allow creators to get an income from their creations before the creations are released to the public domain. The state should have stood firm in keeping the copyright protection short. However they didn't, but instead succumbed to the "industry" interests. This resulted to turning every creation in a cash-cow with no expiry date, which obviously hinders innovation and creation: there is little incentive to create a second good work since the first one you created will provide you and your descendants with a steady flow of cash for the next 200 years.

I understand that the above is a bit simplified because it omits the role of the "industry" in the flow of cash. The "industry" pimps will absorb much of the cash intended for the creator (after all, they forced him to sell them for pennies the copyright of his work). This will keep the creator going because he doesn't really earn that much to retire. But it will also degrade his output because he knows that even if he does really-really good with his next creation, it is the "industry" pimps that will get the most out of his work.

Still quite simplified, but I think you get my point: You can't grant quasi-perpetual copyright protection (google "The Mickey Mouse Protection Act") and still expect the same amount of innovative creations.

The study says "Piracy (filesharing) was the driving force behind increased creative output" -- more movies, songs etc., which is complete nonsense. The real reason is the cost of producing and distributing art has dropped due to new software for creating the art and using the web for distribution.

The study encourages artists to use complements -- "speaking tours, concerts, t-shirts etc." to make income. Well, that only works for famous, top 5% artists. What about the remaining 95%? They are not famous

They are not famous enough to make any income from such "complements."

Why is that my problem?

If 95% of [insert poor helpless group] can't make any income from [insert some lifestyle choice they want] it is not society's problems. Its theirs. If they can't make it as an artist then don't quit your day job.

No, they need to be paid in a different way. Selling copies of something that can be copied at zero cost is not a maintainable business because everyone can make those copies. You can't magically make that go away.

So the artists need to find a way to get paid in some other way. Most smaller bands don't make any appreciable money fom record sales anyway (if they even produce recordings of their shows) but work on a per-gig basis: You hire them, they play at your venue. So bigger bands have to do this as well, only they call it a tour. Or you produce stuff of intrinsic value and sell that - for example by bundling your CDs with something physical your fans are going to like. Or even auctioning off the gold master of your studio album if you're big enough. Or just by selling your music on vinyl.

The problem bands face is that the current distribution model has become obsolete. Extending copyright is not going to change that, especially as the labels now have the copyright for longer than the artist lives, so they'll keep profiting off his work when he won't be able to benefit from that profit (leaving aside that the artist only sees a small fraction of what the label makes).

Copyright laws haven't been weakened. They have been strengthened and unbalanced greatlyin the favor of corporations. If anything, those "radicals" here that want a change to thelaw would only be restoring it to it's 1970 condition.

Ultimately, you must convince the consumer to pay.

Draconian enforcement measures won't help.

All they will do is cause broader social harm and foster ill will.

Money won't magically fall from the sky if you find someway to completely eliminate piracy.

The study encourages artists to use complements -- "speaking tours, concerts, t-shirts etc." to make income. Well, that only works for famous, top 5% artists. What about the remaining 95%? They are not famous enough to make any income from such "complements."

But they still are famous enough to make more than pocket change from royalties?I'd guess far more artists make money from tours, gigs etc. than royalties.

I had just watched an interview with an old theater actor which is pretty wealthy today. He said he made most of his money acting in theaters almost everyday, 2 or 3 shows a day. He said: "That was real work, there was almost no TV or movies in those times."He added: "Pay was god, because not that many people would be crazy enough to do it, but we had a lot of fun and I enjoyed every minute of it".

I then envisioned things like a return of the pendulum, which sometimes seems like something natural in society. Nowadays, a limited set of actors get work making movies/TV shows and get paid the big bucks. Either you get famous and make millions or you starve. A lot more actors/musicians would get work if they had to do live shows. I can see how more diversity, thus availability would benefit society. Of course, the big names would lose but this is another story already largely covered here before..

I guess the point I am trying to make is that even if technology is involved, like with nature, society seem sometimes driven by a magical hand that cause a return of the pendulum at some point when we have reached a breaking point in one direction;-)) Like nature, society sometimes seem to tend to come back to an equilibrium by itself !!

I always thought as society more like an elastic band than a pendulum (as it the backlash is faster and more fierce the more you stretch it past the 'neutral' point). Still, it's not usually the equilibrium that's reached, certainly in today's polarised political times. When something gives and 'snaps back', like your pendulum, there's usually a good degree of overshoot in the other direction as people have been pushed past their tolerance for being entirely rational about a subject, and they push en mass

Most of the people working in the record industry are just there to get the media to the stores. Since it costs very little to put songs on the internet, the business model of selling the songs in stores doesn't make sense. The record industry is dieing slowly because of this. Fortunately. artists are not in the same predicament. They have more then just that one way(which wasn't that much either) of making money.

It is truly crippling to see the mental fails that keep being propogated by the press and even supposedly academia here. "Piracy (filesharing) was the driving force behind increased creative output". It's simply not true that one caused the other. There isn't an artist or an amorphous group of artists who are outputting more per artist because they are thinking ex-ante "shit I'm going to get paid less than I used to so I better produce more". That might work for widgets and industry but for artistic output? Total rubbish. I'm not entering into the debate about the pros and cons of filesharing by the way but this sort of causative fail is just depressing and so utterly prevalent.

"To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries."

I wish people would actually read the constitution.

"To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts," : not to promote the interests of monied pockets of power.

"securing limited Time to Authors and Inventors," : limited time (we've gone over this time and time again), but *Authors* and *Inventors*

The people that wrote the constitution were damn smart people. Too bad we stopped listening. Copyright is supposed to benefit all of us so of course a limited copyright span that balances the rights of *Authors* (not Corporations) vs. the public is the best. Here's to another study that didn't need to be done.

The Harvard Business School working paper finds that given the increase in artistic production along with the greater public access conclude that "weaker copyright protection, it seems, has benefited society."

Wait! Don't tell them that yet!

Look at the explosion of user generated content on the Internet. People everywhere are creating their own media and cutting out the traditional copyright CABAL precisely because the traditionalists are broken. As long as the buggy-whip manufacturers continue to believe th

So if I hear a band that I really like (it doesn't happen often as i'm a blues rock fan and todays music.... uhmm... sucks) chances are that i'll download a song or two... although I can't remember the last time I downloaded a song by a new band

I digress... So if I were to do that, and enjoyed the song, I might enjoy 3 other songs max on the album... most CD's now days are just horrid vs